


Motivation

by Epi_girl



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Earth C (Homestuck), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Not much mostly implied, Post-Canon, This is mostly just John being real sad, started out as a vent fic turned into this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 22:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14903210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epi_girl/pseuds/Epi_girl
Summary: John is tired.Tired and alone, by his own design.





	Motivation

You are surrounded by the wind.

You suppose that’s what it means, to be an Heir, inheriting what inherently surrounds you and taking that power as your own, and as you float aimlessly in your little bubble of wind that is the only sound for a while. It isn’t even sound. You’re only thinking.

You think too much.

People would say Rose is the overthinker, or Dirk even if you don’t know him that well, and you suppose that makes sense. They’re all intellectual and clever and as much as you love her Rose has a tendency to psychoanalyze the hell out of everyone around her, but you overthink things in a different way. You don’t think about it initially, but when it’s already passed you by you get to wondering. Wondering if that was smart, if you messed up, if they hate you now, and so much more. You can’t stop those thoughts and lately you’ve stopped trying to.

Hence the wild, opaque gusts swirling around your body right now.

You feel cold.

You suppose the cold is an improvement over the nothingness of feeling numb that you’re so accustomed to lately.

*

You get angry, on occasion. Angry enough that you could almost rival Jade when she gets all fired up, but not quite. But you get angry and since you’ve resigned yourself to leaving hammers behind for the most part now, (you don’t really need them on Earth C) you channel harsh bursts of air through your fingertips.

It’s usually inside your house, and somehow, you can’t bring yourself to care about the way it destroys the place you grew up in. You’ve seen the wind you create destroy old heirlooms, a couple pieces of furniture, one of your old handbooks on coding that you still can’t comprehend even years down the line. It doesn’t bother you at all.

The only time it ever feels slightly wrong is when you break the frame of a family photo by mistake, the cracks in the glass radiating out from Dad’s face.

*

You don’t get out much, anymore.

You never did, really, none of you, you had internet friends for a reason, but it’s gotten worse and all your friends know it.

They pester you near constantly now, Jade with messages that are slowly sounding angrier the longer you avoid replying to her, Rose with long strings of text or a concise question about your mental state, depending on the day, and Dave with those lengthy, stupid rambles about nothing or with something genuine buried so deep you usually don’t notice that you’re used to seeing from him.

It tears at your heartstrings in a way that is raw (because you’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel), when you look over their tags, unchanged now even after the game when they themselves have changed so profoundly, and you suppose so have you.

You’ve changed and the thought is jarring, and you realize you don’t want to change. You’d rather stay static, god, please, you can’t move forwards anymore.

Maybe that’s why you wear your stupid god tier outfit all the time.

*

You think you might have known it would only be a matter of time before someone came over.

It’s still a shock when it happens, hearing a loud, constant pounding at the door accompanied by shouts you think belong to Jade, and you’re scared, because that reminds you that you have a door, you have to leave this place you’ve spent so long hiding out in eventually, and so you hide upstairs and listen to your friend scream that she knows you’re in there and to just come out and talk to her already you hermit until she either tires herself out or gets sick of your bullshit and leaves.

You wouldn’t be surprised by either option, and really, you don’t care which it is anymore.

*  
  
It’s easy to forget your friends are gods.

They humour you, for a while, Jade coming back to yell at you while slamming her hand into the door, and less commonly, Dave or Rose dropping by, knocking, maybe waiting a while, and then leaving you be. They let you stay alone inside and you think it’s because they can’t do anything else, but you’re proven 100 percent fucking wrong when Dave just materializes in your living room one day.

You stare at him from the steps, suddenly conscious of how gaunt your face must look, how dark the bags under your eyes have gotten, the sickly tint to your skin.

He takes couple steps forward, eyebrows tilted up in a way you think means he’s worried. You’ve almost forgotten how to read him, it’s been so long.

“John,” he says, voice soft and concerned like you’ve almost never heard it before, raising a hand like he wants to touch you, but thinks better of it. “What happened to you?”

The first words out of your mouth in months are “I don’t know.”

*

He keeps popping back up.

It’s becoming routine at this point, to just walk downstairs and lean against the wall and wait for Dave to appear, talk to him for a while, and then go back to how things were before he started visiting until he shows up again.

But your friend is a persistent little shit and no matter how much you try to brush off his suggestions to go outside or talk to someone or eat consistently, he doesn’t stop. He never has. You love and hate that about him.

He keeps asking and pushing and trying to subtly hint at it even if he’s about as subtle as a blow from one of your hammers to the face, bringing up Rose like you don’t know what he’s getting at or bringing you notebooks and suggesting talking about emotions, which you know for a fact he doesn’t find easy. It’s strange, and honestly, you try your very best to keep it off your mind whenever he’s not around.

Eventually, something breaks.

It’s not you, it’s Dave, surprisingly enough. You don’t even remember the context, the way you barely remember the grey haze of living anymore, just that you were talking and then he was crying and clinging to you and begging you to take care of your body, to give a shit about yourself again, and you let him cry into your shoulder, wishing you had the energy to do just that.

*

Though you’re exhausted, you start to notice little things.

The more time goes on, now, rather than just getting worse and worse and falling deeper into your head and not knowing what to do but do nothing, you start to... well, try.

When Dave is around, you feel like trying. Not because you’ve got any more inherent motivation, no, you just can’t stand to see that half scared, half sad, worried expression he thinks you don’t see him make every time you’re not looking right at him. You can’t stand how nervous he seems around you, like you’re some porcelain doll that he could shatter with any movement. So you try to eat and you manage to stave off the numbness long enough to fall asleep some nights and you actually manage to say more than a few words at a time. They always come out rough and tired and a little bit off but they come out and really, if you’re talking, who cares.

When you look in the mirror about a month later, you’re surprised to see a person that almost looks alive staring back at you.

*

You finally go outside.

It’s just to the balcony, staring out over the railing at the now unfamiliar scenery of Earth C, but you’re outside, breathing the air you still have a mastery over, even when the game has long since ended.

You can hear Dave materialize in the living room, starting to call out for you when you aren’t there.

For the time being you ignore him, fiddling with the neckline of the shirt you finally changed out of the god pajamas into, looking at the world from behind your slightly foggy glasses, even in the crisp mid-day air. It’s nice. The realization that you’ve really, truly missed all of this you’re seeing now hits you like a freight train.

  
A single tear slides down your face.

 

You’re going to be okay.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Oof my son
> 
> This is probably super ooc sorry


End file.
